Impact of Two Alternative Dosing Strategies for Trachoma Control in Niger
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2009-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Trachoma is a disease of poverty, which in the hyperendemic areas affects all individuals by
the time they are two years old. Active disease is concentrated in children and occurs
sporadically in adults. Infection is more widespread. It is anticipated that 25% of the
children will be blinded by this disease if they live to be 60 years of age. The blindness
rates are higher in women, presumably because of their closer contact with children who can
infect them and add to damage from infections the women had while young.
This proposal is to better define how azithromycin in community-based treatment can be used
to eliminate blinding trachoma. We will also take the opportunity to join these field studies
with genetic epidemiologic studies to better understand the dynamic epidemiology of Chlamydia
trachomatis infection in a trachoma endemic area. The empiric data generated from the
treatment/follow-up studies, together with the information on sources and spread patterns
from genetic epidemiology will be used to generate more robust models to guide future
treatment/re-treatment protocols.
We propose to conduct a randomized, community based trial in the Maradi region of Niger to
test the hypothesis that two community wide azithromycin treatments, spaced one month apart,
are significantly more effective in reducing ocular C. trachomatis infection and trachoma at
one year compared to a single mass azithromycin treatment.
Phase:
Phase 4
Details
Lead Sponsor:
University of California, San Francisco
Collaborator:
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)